Iran Expects U.S. to Lift Sanctions next Year

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran believes the United States is likely to change its policy toward the Islamic republic and lift sanctions within the next year under pressure from oil companies, an Iranian official said Thursday. Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Kazempour Ardebili said American companies have suffered as a result of unilateral U.S. sanctions and have "all along shown their willingness to contribute to development of Iran's oil and gas" resources. "Considering mounting pressures on the U.S. administration by American oil firms, we expect Washington to lift sanctions against Iran in the next 12 months," Ardebili told The Associated Press. "Even a Democrat administration will be under tremendous pressure to lift sanctions. Considering Republican election statements, we expect sanctions not to be renewed in 2001," he said. In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker declined to predict the future of U.S.-Iran relations. He reiterated longstanding U.S. concerns about Iran's weapons program and involvement in terrorism. He also noted U.S. willingness to open a dialogue with Iran. But "I really can't engage in any speculation about what the future is going to bring," he said. Iranian officials have said they think the sanctions, imposed after the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, will be lifted if George W. Bush becomes the next president. Bush has had long ties with big U.S. oil companies. Hard-liners opposing President Mohammad Khatami's policy of detente with the West are now softening their stance and even calling for dialogue with the United States. "Now Khatami's rival faction is not opposed to a rapprochement with the United States. Dialogue should not be considered a taboo. If our national interests require, we should talk with Satan in hell," hard-liner Mohammad Javad Larijani was quoted as saying by the daily Aftab-e-Yazd newspaper Thursday. "We should defend our national interests. We should hold dialogue even with our most hostile enemies if necessary," Larijani, considered the political theorist of hard-liners, said. Excluding a minority of hard-liners, other conservative figures are promoting Iran's ties with countries they used to denounce, including Egypt. The United States eased sanctions on some Iranian goods earlier this year and called on Tehran to help start a new relationship. Washington severed ties with Tehran after Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

Iranian President Tells Students Not to Lose Hope

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's moderate President Mohammad Khatami on Wednesday urged thousands of students not to lose hope in the reform movement he launched when he took power in 1997. Khatami, who was addressing an estimated 10,000 students at Tehran's Tarbiat-e-Modarres University on Iran's annual student day, said the reforms were a new experience for Iran and that the country was still in the process of learning to respect opposing viewpoints and experiencing democracy within an Islamic framework. "Some believe that Islam is not compatible with democracy. But a majority of our people have rejected this idea. We have decided to establish an Islamic democracy. It is very difficult to accomplish this but we should have hope in the future," Khatami said amid shouts of support from the students, many of whom waved posters of the highly popular president. Khatami accused hard-liners of being against reforms. "We have not yet learned to tolerate and respect each other. Those who were defeated at the polls are resorting to every means possible to oppose (reforms) and not concede defeat," he added. The judiciary, which is controlled by hard-liners, has closed down 31 publications -- all but one of them pro-reform newspapers _ since it began a press crackdown in April in a bid to undercut Khatami's overwhelming public support and roll back social and political reforms. Reformists say hard-liners account for 20 percent of Iran's population but wield 80 percent of the power through unelected institutions. The hard-liners, supported by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, went on the offensive against Khatami and his allies after losing control of the powerful Majlis, or parliament, in February elections. Khatami told the students that he was powerless to stop constitutional violations committed mainly by the hard-line judiciary. "The president should be able to stop constitutional violations," he said. Khatami's speech was often interrupted by students chanting, "political prisoners should be released." The president had watched silently over the past year as hard-liners put reformists on trial in courts where the prosecutors are also the judges and jailed pro-democracy activists on ambiguous charges.

Iranian Court Issues New Summons to Reformers

TEHRAN, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Court has filed fresh dissent charges against two leading reformers, both already on trial for allegedly violating state security during an overseas conference, a reformist newspaper said on Monday. Hambastegi, a respected daily, said student leader Ali Afshari and magazine publisher Ezatollah Sahabi faced new charges after attending a pro-reform campus rally last month. Afshari, who was arrested upon his return to Iran after speaking at a conference on the reform movement in Berlin in April and was subsequently released on bail, used the student rally to condemn the hardline judiciary. Sahabi, who also spoke at the Berlin conference, addressed students at the meeting, held at Tehran's Amir Kabir University of Technology. Iran's conservatives say the two reformers and some 16 other participants failed to defend the Islamic system during the conference. The newspaper said that hearings for the two had been set for December 10.